8/12/2019 i Pa Quick Guide

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Quick guide to IPA[International Phoenetic Alphabet]

English sounds

Symbol(s) Sounds like Comments

[] a in bat or cat

[!] a in father or o in nod

[e] a in made or ai in wait closed e

["] e in bed or met open e

[#] e in hidden or o in pardon unaccented, called schwa

[i] ee in need or i in pizza

[$] i in bid or window

[o] o in hope or oa in road closed o

[%] aw in saw or gnawed open o

[u] u in rude or oo in food

[&] oo in wood or u in put

['] u in cup or sud

[b] b in bother

[d] d in dude

[f] f in face or ph in phat

[(] g in go or guts hard g

[d)] j in jest or g in genuine soft g (more about )later)

[h] h in howdy or hey

[j] y in yes note that y is not the symbol!

[k] c in corn, k in kill, or q in queen

[l] l in lobby

[*] first sound in properly pronounced lute like [lj]- think all you can eat

[m] m in miss[n] n in nose

[+] ng in ping one sound = one symbol

[p] p in palate

[r] r in rose

[s] s in sell or c in cell

[,] sh in shush

[t] t in tell

[t,] ch in chime

[-] th in this (voiced th)

[.] th in thin (unvoiced th)[v] v in very

[w] w in will or u in queen (like [u], but fluid)

[z] z in zap

[)] s in measure or asian

This guide is courtesy of http://artsongcentral.com

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Quick guide to IPAPage 2 - FRENCH

French sounds not found in English

Symbol(s) Sounds like Examples

[a] more open than a in bat or cat carafe [karaf][y] lips rounded for [u] and tongue forward for [i] lune [lyn]

[] lips rounded for [o] and tongue forward for [e] feu [f]

[] lips rounded for [%] and tongue forward for ["] leur [lr]

[!/] like a in father, but nasal (soft palate down) en [!/]

[%/] like aw in paw, but more closed and nasal on [%/]

["/] like e in red, but nasal vin [v"/]

[/] the vowel [], but nasal un [/]

[0] the vowel [y], but glided (as [w] is to [u]) nuit [n0i]

[1] like ni in onion or ny in Anya agneau [!1o][r] same symbol as english, but different sound

In spoken French, it is a fricative sound at the back of the hard palate

In sung French, it is rolled or flipped, unless a casual effect is desired

Other French differences:

French is generally spoken and sung without much word stress.

French is generally spoken and sung with considerable legato.

If you want to accent a word, put weight on the unaccented syllable.

Final consonants are rarely pronounced BUT

They are often pronounced when the following word begins with a vowelThis is called liason, or in English, elision.

There are no hard and fast rules for when this occurs.

Final e is rarely pronouned when spoken BUT

It is usually pronounced as [#] when sung, but never accented.

A regular dictionary will not show this in its IPA transcriptions.

(You have to know.)

French [%] is pronounced more towards [&] than in English.

Plosive consonants like p, b, t, d, and k are less explosive in French.

(less air escapes at the end of the consonant.)

Nasal vowels should not be TOO nasal.

There is currently an excellent introduction to French pronunciation with audio examples at:

http://www.languageguide.org/francais/grammar/pronunciation/

This guide is courtesy of http://artsongcentral.com

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Quick guide to IPAPage 3 - German and Italian

German sounds not found in French or English

Symbol(s) Sounds like Examples

[2] lips rounded for [&] and tongue forward for [$] mssen [m2s#n][3] make the mouth shape for [i] ich [$3]

then blow air through it

[x] sounds like hocking a loogie auch [!ux]

made with tongue against back of hard palate

[r] same symbol as english, but different sound

In spoken German, it is usually a fluttery sound

made with the tongue and the soft palate in the back of the mouth

(though sometimes and in some regions more forward.)

In sung German, it is usually rolled, flipped, or omitted.

r at the end of a syllable is often unpronounced in colloquial speech.it can be appropriate to leave these unpronounced in singing as well.

(As one might find in a Brooklyn accent...)

Other German differences:

Like English, much of the emotion of the language is in the consonants.

It is often good to accent a word by prolonging its consonant instead of singing it louder.

Double consonants are often lengthened, though not as much as in Italian.

eg: bitten as compared to Italian fato and fatto.

Words beginning with a vowel generally must begin with a gentle glottal.

[$] is often modified towards [i] when singing.Do not modify too far! You can change the meaning of the words.

Overmodification of [$] is a very common mistake in American singers singing

German

Italian sounds not found in German, French or English

None! (sort of...)

Some thoughts on Italian diction:

While we have already covered all the sounds, they sometimes occur in strange contexts.Most of us are not familiar with the [*] sound, as in gli occhi. May be written [lj].

Double consonants are literally doubled when sung.

They are often held for half the value of the note.

ch is pronounced [k], while c followed by e or i is pronounced [t,] (opposite of English)

Usually, the emotion is highlighted through the vowels, not consonants.

Be careful about diphthongs!!! Really!!!

See the quick guide to Italian diction for more things to watch out for

This guide is courtesy of http://artsongcentral.com